Norrin Radd is the Silver Surfer, an alien from the planet Zenn-La. He wields the Power Cosmic making him able manipulate cosmic energy granted to him by his former master Galactus. He travels the stars on his trusty surfboard with superhuman speed.

Is the Silver Surfer too emotional?

I decided to thumb through Silver Surfer Vol. 1 today to take a look at how many times we see him in the following pose (or similar):

Can you take a guess at the frequency?

Well in 18 comics of the first volume, I was able to capture him in this state more than 20 times (not counting pain/recovery from battle).

Believe me, I am not complaining. As you will read (if you are interested) in my next blog post, I am a huge Silver Surfer fan and believe this "emotion" makes him a better character. I just worry that some folks, wanting to "get to know" Silver Surfer's character, might start with Volume 1 and feel that his is too much of a "whiner".

Anyway, here are some more examples:

Now, with this tortured emotion of sadness, also comes rage and power, we see quite a bit of that as well :)

He was trapped on Earth with a bunch of savages that feared and despised him and constantly killed one another. He was made to soar space and comes from a Utopian society. Being trapped on Earth is literally the worst thing that could happen to him. Combine that with having his memories back and knowing his love Shalla Bal was out there and he can't get to her is more than enough to cause such a strong emotion. He got as equally pissed as he got sad if I recall. It's all he could do.

If you gave up your love, your life and your planet to save it to become a herald of an abstract entity and become a space faring silver unich on a surfboard, I'm sure you would emotional too.

I know you're exaggerating intentionally, but for clarity's sake, he is not a "unich", lol.

As for the topic, yes, Stan the Man had an affinity for tormented characters with internal struggles and he did play with that theme a whole lot in the original Surfer series. I know it can be rather monotonous after a certain point but it did shape the character and defined him for future stories to come.

The first time I ever read the Silver Surfer was in Fantastic Four #55. I was hooked. What an incredibly powerful character (I'm power freak, LOVE uber powerful superheroes...). I thought his original depiction in that issue was spot on. So detached from human emotion (as you would expect from someone who has achieved a level of "oneness", or cosmic consonnance, with the universe. When Lee decided to give the character his own magazine, he was decidedly a more "spiritual" character, saddened by the destructive tendencies of creatures from all over the universe, including humans, and prone to soapbox sermons rife with universal philosophy, the meaning of life and such. Pak's recent mini was a great opportunity to 1) sever the tie with Galactus 2) allow the character to experience human frailty and emotions again and use that as a platform to 3) give the character a decidedly more aggressive edge and a reason to want to kick ass. I cannot tell you how frustrating to see a character with Norrin's level of power, NOT USE IT. He's worse than Superman. He actually has more powers than Superman and is worse at utilizing them in any given encounter with enemies.

The Silver Surfer has such GREAT potential and yet time and again, writer's miss the point with him. However, a large key with him, is giving him a human connection...someone in the form of Alicia Masters that can help make him accessible to the average reader.

@Malevolent1: I agree. It always seems like a mystery what his true potential actually is. Power potenial that is, we see his "humanity" potential all the time. I mean, look at Requiem. I remember when I read Infinity Crusade #4 (and subseqent Crossover in SS #84) where he absorbed all that energy from the Sun (as part of Thanos' plan), it was mentioned, "In the past only his physical being and sense of self-preservation have limited the amount of raw power he has attempted to take into his person"... I mean really, he can sit there, absorb energy from STARS and use it against his opponents - that is pretty fantastic. He should be unstoppable... but I guess it takes characters like Thanos to really exploit all that power - maybe that is it. He just doesn't know. Maybe he needs a bigger does of cosmic awareness! ;)

One of the deepest moments in Norrin's life was when Shalla Bal gave him the news that Jartran (his father) committed suicide....and how he tried to pretend like it didn't mean anything to him. Powerful moment in Norrin's history. Not to mention the guy has had some serious woman problems. Leaving Shalla Bal. Then thinking he could get back together with her when she was playing empress of Zenn La. Then there was Mantis, which he totally fouled up. Then Nova. That whole thing with Firelord was weird. Then, what I thought was always the natural choice, Alicia. Guys got layers and layers of hurt and pain, just like most of us.